The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1887-03-13

There are three hundred and twenty-five
| of us, taken from all sorts of districts,
| nominated and elected in all sorts of ways.
Does not this give most gratifying evidence
| of the deep underlying recognition of civic
respons bility which controls the average
American citizen? l don't mean to say
| that these Representatives are not eager to
retain their positions and increase their in
huence and fame, nor that they are not
often INSCRIPTIONS as to the means; but
do mean to say that all of them, even the
worst, have great regard for their coun-
try, and great sense of the honor of being
trustee of its good name, and that this
feeling Is in nearly all cases a controlling
one TApplause The Member may be
rough and coarse, Indifferent to delica'e
considerations of manner, and even of
matter, which you and [ consider most inn
portant but for all that no enc will get
him to vote for what he thinks is against
the public good any quicker than you or l
would. 1t ne does vote wrong, as you and
| think he does pretty often, it is because
he is ignorant and mistakes the relation of
the measure to the public veal If ne votes
for bad measure, The reason in ninety
nine cases out of the hundred is because he
thinks it is the right one. Shall We not
recognize the purity and worth of his
motive?
Does this surprise you i? Consider these
men are representatives of the people who
elect them, and the peopl4 still, thank
God, are siDgularly moral and patriotic.
Don't fail to notice the distinction | make
between moral principle and intelligence.
/ don't claim that all the members of Con-
gress are intelligent neither are the con-
stituencies. Few members have any knowl-
edge of historical precedent and of econo-
mic science, or skill in the arts of states
manship, the power to reason and per-
suade--to sum their lacking in one word,
culture, But how few constituencies have
any culture themselves, or want it in their
representatives. Nor am I sure if these
ruder constituencies found their Members
full of this culture, that they would find
them SO ready to express and enforce the
peculiar wants of their districts in Con-
gress. The Member might represent better
what the district ought to want, but would
be less likaly to represent what the district
actually does want.
The editor doesn't think of this. He be-
longs to the cultured class. and has no pa
tience with q Members slow appreciation of
economic truths. Ignorant of the honest pur-
pose of the member, the editor thinks his
indifference is not intellectual, but moral
He assumes that because it is so plain to
him it must be plain to the Member, and
that the member refuses to recognize the
value of the truth, because he is perverse
whereas, if the editor knew the member. he
would see that that Members ignorance of
political theories was dense, but that his
wish to adopt the theory which was best
for the country was an ardent oae, and
sure ground of hope and encouragement.
The discovery would show the editor that
all that was needed was patience and time,
till the well disposed Member should I'M
derstand the truth. Besides, the city editor
with all his culture, and the city Member
with all his economic lore, is not always
the one who is wholly right. Political
economy is science which is not science.
There are too many elements which will
too many truths which seemed like axioms
yesterday, and which the facts of to-day
turn into untruths; SO sometimes 1 feel
tempted to confess that the Western Mem
Der, by his stolid hold upon facts, may
have been as helpful to legislation as we in
the ambition of our theories. If the West
accepts theory too slowly, how often have
we seized it with excessive zeal.
Take the money questions. Here we are
apt to be dogmatlc, and seem to have most
right to be. Shall we not confess that we
said, and said it according to laws which
which have governed human affairs from
the beginning "There can be no resump-
ton when we lack the money, and every
creditor knows that there is not enough to
pay him and the rest" while the Western
Member, who knew nothing of laws which
had governed human affairs from the
beginning, and who seemed to care
less, but who knew and cared very much
what the people of his district wanted, said:
"The way to resume is to resume and
resumt ton was a fact. Or take another
instance. If ever there was meno-metal-
ist it was l. and when ten years ago Mem
berS who lived near the silver mines spoke
to me of bimetalism l 1t outraged that
they should insult me in what seemed to
me an unblushing effort to aid their section
and industry at the expense of Gods truth
and the National safety. The silver men
are not all right yet, and they are very
wrong to cling still to a deprecated dollar.
But because they are wrong at this point,
am not gong to forget that | was wrong
at the other. admit now, as the world |
does, that gold as the only legal tender is
impracticable, and that the ultimate out
come of our currency troubles must and
will be the use of two metals. A silver
dollar shall pass as gold dollar, only the |
silver dollar must have enough. silver to be |
worth the gold dollar; and that is nothing
but bimetalism, and the stupid Western
Member has brought us and the world to |
that conclusion.
If 1 have, in the few moments allotted to
me, done anything to correct a local public |
o Union that has done great injustice to an
earnest, patricticand worthy body of men,
1 shall be glad that came here this even
ing; glad, for the sake of tho House of |
Representatives, which l greatly respect
and of which | am proud to be Member;
glad for your sake, for it is a pleasanter
thing to think well of those whom you have
made your rulers. And for my own part,
if you are dissatisfied with what have said
this evening my only comment is that